Second-Hand Fate
by happilyinsane13
Summary: Merlin has lived thousands of years waiting for Arthur to return. One by one people from the past are reborn back into his life. Merlin realizes he hasn't thought how he will push himself back into Arthur's life, when the man doesn't remember him.


Merlin passed by the shores of Avalon everyday, carrying his backpack on his old withered shoulders. The weight forced him to hunch over more than they usually do, his white beard gnarled and twisted by wind and rain. His big girl, with her bright eyes and dazzling smile, would tease him,

"Da, you could make yourself young again and just run around that damned lake!"

Merlin just shushed her.

"It's a lot less trouble when I'm old. No one wants to bother the crazy old man."

It was true. Nobody in the small village where Arthur's castle once stood, proud and solemn, sought out the old man with the terribly wrinkled face, the blue veins protruding under his pale skin. However, the young men did enjoy seeking out the old man's "granddaughter," to Merlin's chagrin.

The normality of life soothed Merlin's tired bones these days, and when he thought about the past thousands of years he understood that this was probably the best he'd had it since he was just a boy, simple servant to Prince Arthur, and part-time sorcerer. Once Uther had died and Arthur had become King, the future had already become dark to Merlin. He just did not realize how much until Arthur had been swept away to Avalon.

Merlin lived the next thousand years as a wanderer, one who simply could not rest. He left Gwen to rule, and the remaining knights, and Gaius, to protect her. Merlin could not face them, feeling the guilt over Arthur's death weigh down his soul. He simply traveled across what was now Great Britain at first, returning every month or so to check on the Kingdom, Avalon, and perform magic where it was needed. Yet when Gwen and the knights began to die off, Merlin could no longer bear the pain. He was old for the time, but still young for a sorcerer. He traveled the world, coming back to the lake every one hundred years to vainly look upon Avalon.

He returned to Great Britain in the 1940s. World War II was upon them, and Merlin felt useless as the old man he had let himself be for hundreds of year. He decided to reverse his age, conjure up papers, and the next thing he knew he was in the trenches. Merlin was aware that he was half-heartedly seeking death even though he knew it was impossible for him to die. A part of him knew he could use magic to end this war, strangle Hitler in his sleep or liberate thousands of Jews.

Yet, Merlin knew that tampering with human events too drastically could make things worse. He learned that when he became the bard at King Richard's table, lacing magic with song about the Holy Land so he would draw his eyes away from the surviving pagans in England. Instead, King Richard slaughtered a whole other race of people for Christianity in the Third Crusade. That's when Merlin lost faith in God.

There was also the time Merlin had happened on a young boy in Italy who had taken such a fall in an alley that most likely his entire lower body would be paralyzed. He had healed him, and that boy had honored him when he had grown to be the infamous Casanova, sleeping with hundreds of woman, impregnating them, leaving them, and raising the death toll due to STD's. That's when Merlin lost faith in childhood.

Then there were the hundreds of times he would walk by Avalon and scream across its waters and no one would answer. The thousands of years where Arthur never came and disaster, plague, and all the evils of humanity reigned supreme. That's when Merlin lost faith in himself.

So he used his gun in the trenches, and never touched his stores of magic except for small spells of healing his fellow soldiers. If he had the power to foresee into their futures and deem it good, he would save them. There were some men who he could not see, and knew it was there time to die. Others simply did not deserve it.

Merlin had developed trench foot in the depths of winter, and during battle had been shot in the right shoulder. It was enough for him to be taken to a make-shift hospital in a church in rural France. The pain in his cot was so sharp and real that sometimes he forgot that his body was already healing itself. He would survive; his magic wouldn't let him die. Merlin soon discovered that a French nurse with soft brown curls and stern hazel eyes wouldn't let him either.

Merlin should not have been surprised that he fell in love with her. He had taken lovers before. Women, men, he quickly realized it did not matter. However this woman, Marie, brought so much color back into his world that the magic in his veins pulsed with excitement. When the war ended they got married, and Merlin thought that maybe this is what he was still alive for. He liked to think that maybe he had been alive for so long so that he could have simple happiness.

When Marie had told him she was with child, their child, Merlin could barely contain his joy. Never in his long life did he expect to have a child. It was something so beyond him, something that he could never hope to create with just his magic, that he had no words. When the child was a born, a baby girl, Merlin's heart stopped.

Not out of wonder or love but out of fear. The minute Merlin saw the little girl's bright blue eyes he knew.

Morgana.

It was undoubtedly her, reincarnated into his own flesh and blood. Merlin wondered if it was punishment for killing her, not just in body but also in character. He had undoubtedly had a hand in her turn to the darkness, and hatred, that consumed her. Or was it Morgana's punishment for turning against him and Arthur? Merlin was not sure, but for the first year of his child's life he could barely look at her without a strange feeling stabbing his heart.

Poor Marie, naïve Marie, did not know what to do. She sobbed and screamed, asking why he could barely hold their child? Was there another woman? Or did he think her false? Merlin could only deny the accusations without saying why.

Then one day Marie had gone off to get the family groceries, leaving Merlin alone with the child. Merlin stared at her with her bouncing black curls in a little pink sundress. She was playing with her wooden horse, rocking back and forth across the abused hardwood floors of the tiny cottage. Merlin stared at her, unable to comprehend this innocence when the soul of a sorceress lay inside the child. Until those big blue eyes looked up at him, and in his native tongue said, "Da."

Merlin was overpowered, knowing he could no longer withhold a father's love for his child. He knelt down in front of her, scooping her up and cooing, "My baby, Morgana, I'm sorry." Merlin then knew that even if this was punishment, it was also forgiveness of some sort. He could forgive and be forgiven.

When Marie came home she wept for joy that day.

As Morgana grew into a young woman Merlin let himself age naturally along with Marie. His hair and beard were a bright salt-and-pepper, and he allowed his hands to gain a slight quiver when they moved. Yet the laugh lines on his face were new to Merlin. He marveled at them whenever he glimpsed himself in the mirror, sometimes staring at his face in wonder for an hour until Marie or Morgana's laughter would break through his reverie.

When Marie caught pneumonia, and died, those wrinkles that had been signs of joy on Merlin's face soon became a mark of sorrow. Morgana was twenty-three at the time, and her magic had grown restless in her veins. Once Marie had been buried in her hometown of Provence they had barely anytime to mourn when Merlin packed up all of their belongings, and fled to Estonia. Morgana refused to speak to him for two months.

Yet without his Marie to keep him grounded in normality, Merlin came face to face with the supernatural again. He had felt, since Morgana was young, the power flowing through her blood. She had once again been gifted with the power her incarnation, and namesake, had possessed. With this power, Merlin had lead a long enough life to know, she could unlock the memories of her past life. The question was not only what she would do when that time came but also whether Merlin should try to tell her beforehand.

Merlin knew the price a person paid when they lied to someone they loved even when they believed it was for the person's own good. Arthur was one story but Morgana was an entirely different case. The first time he had lied to her it had set an unstoppable course of events that had led to not only Arthur's death but her own. If her purpose of being reborn was redemption, hers or Merlin's, he had to tell the truth. Yet, when he gazed at her in a rare moment of simple happiness, talking to a young man in front of their small home, smiling coyly he felt he could not rob her. Not of her innocence.

Not yet.

So Merlin bided his time. Instead he let himself morph from young to old, old to young, as if it was natural. The first time he decided to take on the vision of his true age in front of Morgana she had, understandably, screamed. Merlin just lifted a white, bushy eyebrow at her and returned to pruning his lavender.

After a few more outbursts from various cases of spontaneously aging and levitating object Morgana was forced to accept that this was normal in her family. So when, in a fit of frustration, she embedded a cleaver clean through a turnip and the cutting board (and maybe caused the pot of water to boil over, no one knows) she was slightly less frightened than she should have been.

Slightly.

So it was in the strange culture of the 1980s that Merlin decided, after much training and traveling, to tell Morgana the truth. They had decided to flee the ever-changing political climate of Europe for a while, and settled in Brazil. Not that anywhere else in the world was much more stable but Merlin secretly thought that if Morgana did painfully, heart-wrenchingly, decided to throw out 40 years of father-daughter love between them, he at least had her trapped in South America. He hadn't taught her how to travel through air yet, anyways.

Merlin had approached her tentatively, cautiously. She was perched on the window seat of their tiny apartment, watching Carnival rage in the crowded streets of Rio de Janeiro outside. She wore a long, pink sundress, one slender leg up and propping her chin, while the other hung over the ledge. He saw a flash of the baby girl on her rocking horse before she became the beautiful woman in front of him again. She did not look a day over twenty-five.

"Morgana," he had said, trying not to choke back the words. "Sweetheart we have to talk."

Morgana turned to him, her eyes dancing.

"I'm not going to see Oscar again, if that's what this is about Da, promise!"

When Merlin did not laugh or start ranting like the true, overprotective father he was, she knew it was serious.

"Come here, Da," she said quietly, inclining her head to the small space in front of her. Merlin moved forward, sitting in front of her, putting both legs up under his chin, hugging them to his chest. He was middle-aged, stubble on his chins and only faint slivers of grey littering his hair.

"What is it?"

Merlin bit his lip nervously.

"Sweetheart, have you ever wondered why I named you Morgana?"

Morgana stiffened.

"Sometimes," she replied, shrugging. "I don't know, I've always kind of shied away from it."

"Well… I am… You know, Merlin. The Merlin… from the stories."

Morgana snorted.

"I figured that much Da, I'm not stupid."

"I know, I know… Just… You're my daughter. My one and only daughter that I love more than anything else. You know that, right? Nothing changes that."

"Da, you're scaring me a bit."

Merlin paused, not sure how to proceed. Looking into Morgana's eyes, his daughter's eyes, he knew it had to be done. Her eyes were so blue, his blue but at the same time _her_ blue. Even though he knew she would have to know, and it was better for him to tell her, he was so afraid…

She would hate him.

"Da,"

Merlin startled, seeing her hand stroke his cheek rather than feeling it.

"I'll still love you Da."

With that Merlin took her hand and held it hard to his face before she could pull away, and he showed her.

Merlin knew that people, normal people, said that sometimes just a few seconds could feel like a lifetime. Those men and women did not know the true meaning of time, and how closely associated it was with pain. Pain was so interwoven into the threads of time. The reason why wars spanned years within the soul, and why no one ever truly stopped mourning. Pain was the reason suffering was such a prolonged experience. Why joy was so fleeting. No one understood that like the wizard who had lived for thousands of years. Until Morgana screamed and sobbed in his arms when the vision was over, but the damned pain was not.

"Da you stabbed me."

"It wasn't you, sweetheart, it wasn't you."

"But it was _you_."

Morgana left two days later, her magic stretching and shrouding her presence so Merlin could not trace her. Merlin knew he could break the veil if he tried but he also was wiser than that. Morgana needed the space. He would only pursue her if he felt her magic darken.

Merlin wept when she returned three weeks later, and she cried in return, holding her father in her arms. His hair was unkempt, his face was unshaven, and his mind had been in such turmoil that his magic had responded, causing his body to exert fever-like symptoms. Morgana's return cooled and warmed him all at once, and when she embraced him he could feel the magic settle.

"I am not her, but I am her. I am redeemed. I am whole."

Merlin nodded.

They spent the remainder of the 80s and early to mid 90s in South America before finally deciding to return to Europe. They moved to Cork, Ireland in 1997. Merlin reverted his age to a healthy thirty year old while Morgana reluctantly forced her body back to fourteen.

"I am not fond of being a teenager again, too many hormones," she grumbled as Merlin walked her to school one day.

"As long as you don't start dating some young wanker," Merlin said, straightening his tie as he prepared to walk to his job as a professor at University College Cork.

"Oh Da, you don't have to worry about that. I like older men."

"What?!"

Before Merlin could make an effort to haul Morgana off so he could lock her in a basement (magically of course) so she could not engage in any risqué activities, Morgana was dancing away in her lithe, awkward teenage body. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"You'll be meeting me auld wan soon enough!"

Merlin growled, muttering to himself, "If I don't turn him into a pig, done it before…"

Merlin made his way to College, his backpack slung over his shoulder with his many notes and papers. He was a professor in the arts department, teaching classes over Folklore and Religions and Global Diversity. It was one of the more enjoyable jobs he had had over many centuries. Society had begun to focus on what a person wanted to do with his life rather than what birth had delegated a person to do.

Merlin dazed off as he walked to the College, reminiscing on a time when he had to disguise himself as a eunuch and had inadvertently helped Empress Wu come to power in China…

_My young love said to me, my mother won´t mind And my father won´t slight you for your lack of kine, And she stepped away from me and this she did say, It will not be long love ´til our wedding day. _

Merlin was jolted awake when he bumped into someone and he saw a woman stumble and begin to fall. On reflex Merlin's eyes glowed gold and timed slowed down long enough for him to catch the woman.

"I'm so sorry," he gushed, straightening her up and dusting her off like the old man he really was. "I wasn't paying the slightest attention, total spastic."

"Oh, well, that's alright," she said, her voice soft and low like a cello gliding through a measure.

_She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair, And fondly I watched her move here and move there, Then she went her way homeward with one star awake, As the swan in the evening moves over the lake._

When Merlin looked into her dark eyes, almost black, he knew he was in love again. His magic could tell when the love was deep, almost destined and meant to be. Just like with Freya, Arthur, and Marie the passion and desire called him to her.

Love for him, however, was not always reciprocated.

"I, um, I mean…" he stuttered, inwardly cursing himself for acting like a bumbling idiot. He could almost hear Arthur laughing raucously at him.

Her radiant smile against her very dark skin made his ancient heart skip a beat.

"You know," she said, her voice still low but very sure of herself. "I work at the Sin é bar over on Coburg Street. You can come by after work. I'll be there late anyways. Picking up some shifts."

"Sure, of course. That'd… that'd be great."

Her smile grew impossibly wider, and she walked off without saying another word. Merlin knew he'd possibly be getting wonderfully smashed with a woman tonight, a woman he was meant for.

_The people were saying no two were e´er wed, But one has a sorrow that never was said, And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear, And that was the last that I saw of my dear. _

In a whirlwind of months Merlin had married Danica Sanders. A woman whose parents had come from England, whose ancestors before them had apparently come from Somalia. She was beautiful to Merlin, her voice calming but confident, She had an underlying grace one would not expect from a waitress at a bar that even Morgana could not help but admire.

Before they knew it Danica Emrys was pregnant with Merlin's second child. Merlin thought that maybe this was why Morgana and he had lived. Arthur had not been thrust to the back of his mind but his hope in the gods, the shores of Avalon, was still fading. Danica gave him reason, gave him life, just like Marie and Arthur had before her…

Just like them she died, in childbirth, leaving him in an everlasting mourning. When Merlin was finally able to look upon his child, after two hours of crying incoherently next to Danica's corpse, (wishing with all his power he could resurrect the dead) Morgana was cradling her.

It was a girl. Her skin was a beautiful shade reminiscent of the color of brilliant bronze. Her eyes were closed but Merlin felt the overwhelming connection of a parent to his child, and knew it was not her fault her mother had died.

He also felt the stirring of a soul that had long been asleep.

"Gwen," he sighed, putting his head in his hands.

"As my own half-sister," Morgana remarked, rocking the child gently back and forth in her sleep. "My punishment for betraying her? Your punishment for loving her husband?"

Merlin flinched.

"I just can't think of anything else Da. Why would she be here? Unless Arthur is finally coming. Gwen being born… maybe it's a sign."

Merlin dared not hope, so instead he said, "Maybe it's just redemption, Morgana. For both of us."

Morgana did not answer, gazing at the young Gwendolyn Emrys in her arms.

_I dreamt it last night that my young love came in, So softly she entered her feet made no din, She came close beside me and this she did say, It will not be long love ´til our wedding day._

Merlin left little Gwen in Morgana's care, and traveled to the shores of Avalon. The skies were grey and the lakes waters were calm, Merlin didn't want them to be calm. He wanted them to stir with fervor and life. He wanted the water to ripple into being until a man with fair blonde hair and blue eyes came traipsing out of it like he still owned the place.

Until then he settled for yelling at it like the crazy old fool he really was.

"You take, you take, and you damn well take everything from me! Everyone I ever come to love recedes back into your damned waters! Have I ever really loved them? Or were they just all means to you vicious end? Was I just a tool to arrange destiny? I'm sick of all of you gods, fates, and magical beings ruining my life!"

Merlin collapsed onto the rocky shores in exhaustion, his grey trousers wrinkling and his white shirt creasing. He paid no mind. It was all meaningless. His life thus far, his love for every man and woman he has dared to love. They were all a means to fates end…

"I wouldn't say that… I think destiny is a means to our end."

Merlin, startled, looked up to see Freya standing in the lakes shallows. She wore a long iridescent robe, and her face was pale and lovely. It was as if she had not simply died, but ascended into greatness despite being Lady of a great dark Lake. Merlin rose up and stumbled forward, his heart nearly stopping.

Oh how he wished it would stop.

"Freya, what-"

"You love me, don't you?"

"What?"

"And Arthur? Marie? Danica?"

"Bloody hell, of course I do!"

"Why?"

"Because… you were my first love. Magic like me, vulnerable like me."

"Marie?"

"Caring, resilient, and oh-so-stubbornly French."

"Danica?"

"Beautiful, intelligent, vivacious."

Merlin wasn't sure what game Freya was playing but the words tumbled out. He knew who was next.

"Arthur?"

"Why are you asking-"

"Arthur?"

There was a brief silence.

"A total clotpole. A loyal, brave, warm-hearted, arrogant, insufferable clotpole who fancied himself a martyr too often."

Freya stepped forward to softly kiss his mouth, a grin on her lips.

"Destiny is your vehicle. Morgana and Guinevere would have come along if you had fallen in love with a man and decided to adopt, or if you had never fallen in love but wanted a child. You fell in love with the person first, destiny just worked its way in whatever crevices it could fit in. It took some people away from you prematurely and that was not fair but do not let it rule your relationships."

Merlin nodded, leaning in for another gentle kiss when Freya pulled away. She shook her head, and smiled coyly.

"I know someone who would be very jealous if you stole a kiss from me."

Merlin faltered in his steps as Freya began to sink back into the lakes dark waters.

"Wait… Arthur? Tell me when he's coming! Is he there? FREYA!"

Only the soft gurgle and pop of bubbles answered him when the Lady of the Lake disappeared.

So two years later, the summer of 2013, Merlin returned from his journey around the lake to their summer home. Upon entering the house Merlin heard the soft pitter-patter of feet rushing towards him. Around the corner came Gwen, her chubby toddler feet carrying her as fast as they could. Morgana was not far behind, eyeing her sister with care.

"Da!" Gwen exclaimed, throwing herself around her father's calf.

Merlin smiled, and with a flash of golden eyes reverted to a younger version of himself. He decided on his mid-twenties, since Gwen seemed to enjoy playing with his younger face. Gwen was used to these displays, under the impression that it was perfectly normal that her father could change his appearance, and her big sister could maker her stuffed animals walk and fly around the room.

"How's my little girl? Eh?" Merlin cooed, scooping her up in his arms.

Gwen giggled delightedly, seeming to enjoy the rush of air and sudden warmth of her father's embrace. Morgana simply smiled.

"And how's my big girl?" Merlin teased, placing a sloppy kiss on Morgana's cheek.

"Very good, thank you." She replied, wiping the kiss away.

Merlin pouted. Morgana smirked.

"Have you read the paper today, Da?"

"No I haven't but I heard the royal couple finally had their little baby, yeah?"

"Oh yes, and what a lovely little addition he is."

"A boy?"

"Read it yourself."

With a flash of her eyes a slightly damp newspaper zoomed in from the living room. It stopped right before smacking into Merlin's face. He felt Gwen being lifted from his arms as Merlin quickly scanned the front page article. His eyes widened, and he belatedly hoped Morgana was covering Gwen's ears when he cursed,

"Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me."

**DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE WELCOME BABY ARTHUR**

"You're gonna be a cradle robber, Da."


End file.
